An evening of listening to community priorities and learning about community expectations has been scheduled for Tuesday, April 10th by the Mercer County Board of Education. The Community Forum will be built around a structured, yet informal give-and-take with school board members, school and district staff, and a number of invited representatives of the community at large. Using the information from this event, the board and district administration will formulate a district- wide set of goals. The new goals will be shared with district staff to guide their planning and work for the 2018-2019 school year. In addition, district administration will be sharing with community members how they have been implementing the past year’s goals and what they have been doing to accomplish those.
Specific participants in the Community Forum have been invited by the district for two reasons: 1) to ensure a broad cross-section of interests, backgrounds and perspectives are included, and 2) to ensure that board members are able to hear from all participants without creating a meeting of unacceptable length. The Board of Education is also soliciting input from all community members, whether invited to participate or not. This forum is a public meeting of the board, so everyone who lives in our district is welcome to attend. Those who attend, but are not active participants, can utilize a written survey to provide their input. The two-hour public session will take place at Mercer County Intermediate School Commons in Aledo from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., again on Tuesday April 10th. No other board action will be taken at the meeting. The Mercer County School Board plans to share a report on the results and the new district goals before July 1st.
Unit 404 Board of Education President Julie Wagner spoke with WRMJ News Director Jim Taylor about the forum following a recent school board meeting.